


waiting for this

by gaytimetraveller



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-07 21:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21224468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytimetraveller/pseuds/gaytimetraveller
Summary: Meis always tied up his hair before he fell asleep, if he could help it. For Guiera, some nights it was an easy reminder of—well, almost everything.





	waiting for this

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes it’s 3am on a school night and u gotta go bonkers over gueimeis

Meis always tied his hair back before he fell asleep, if he could help it. Not tightly, not pulling his bangs up out of his face for once, but just loosely enough to keep it all back. He hated waking up with his hair in his face, he said. It was hard enough to keep it long and untangled as things were.

His hair had always tangled easily, even if it didn’t curl in the heat or stick out like Gueira’s.

But seeing him like that, it reminded Gueira of Miami, of before; of Meis tying his hair back when he cooked out of the retroactively almost laughable fear that it would get caught on something or end up catching flame. As cheesy as it sounded, that’d been a lifetime ago. The two of them in Gueira’s tiny kitchen after school, with Meis trying to fry something on the stove while he crunched on those stupid hard candies Guiera could never handle.

Gueira missed having a real kitchen. As much as he’d hated cooking, it was hard not to miss getting the chance of a real meal every night. Tonight, they had a few bags of popcorn and some trail mix between them. Not bad, all things considered.

He watched Meis walk around with a hair elastic in his mouth as flames danced around his feet; another defense from frigid desert nights. As hot as they both ran, a little extra never hurt. (Even though Gueira had went and shrugged off his own jacket.) In the distance, fire sparked and jolted sporadically, almost like sparklers and fireworks, lighting up abnormally bright in the night.

Boss, out there shooting his arrows around. Again. Another blast went off, and it was enough to imagine the pop! Gueira popped another chocolate chip into his mouth.

“Does that guy ever get tired?” Meis sighed, and when Gueira looked up his hair was pulled back tight, showing off both of his eyes as he rolled them. He couldn’t help staring.

It’d been a while.

Before he could so much as open his mouth, Meis practically flopped down beside him, reaching one hand into the bag of trail mix. He threw a handful of it into his mouth, and then squinted down at the bag, then back up at Guiera.

“Did you really eat all the candy again,” he deadpanned. It wasn’t a question, they both knew how this went.

Gueira snorted. “You snooze you lose,” and when he turned to face him, they were nearly nose to nose, Meis scrunching up his face at him somewhere between amusement and disdain. He raised his nearly nonexistent eyebrows when Gueira remained tongue-tied just a moment too long. They’d really known each other for forever

“What? Cat got your tongue?” Meis grinned, sharp as a knife and halfway dangerous, whether that meant taunting or turning this into a real firefight. But when Gueira did nothing but vaguely sputter back, not actually managing to look away, all those edges smoothed and softened down. He was quiet for a moment, just staring back, before he huffed something like a laugh. “Y’know, sometimes I forget about it.”

There wasn’t much of a question what he was referring to. For a moment, Gueira could almost imagine they were back in Dallas, back in Meis’ stupid cousin’s stupid apartment where the AC only ever kicked in when it was already cold, and all the nights Meis had stubbornly wedged himself beside Gueira on the couch because back then, Gueira was the warm one. And Gueira had been afraid to so much as look at him, so afraid he would bend and break and melt away, and Meis still wouldn’t leave, would still fix him with that level stare in the dark even when parts of his face were still wrapped in gauze or those few days he’d had that medical eyepatch.

(They still had a few pictures of him with that thing, from the first day or two he’d thought it was more cute than annoying.)

Back then, Gueira never would have dreamed about reaching out for him (again), about putting hands on his face (again), his hands used to shake just thinking about it. But now, flames couldn’t touch him. There was no spike of fear in touching Meis, no underlying panic when Meis took his hand in his own and put it to his cheek and it lined up just-so with skin that still felt newer and softer to the touch.

There was still guilt when Meis leaned into his hand a little, looking at him in a way that was different than Dallas. He knew just as well it was easier to remember Dallas than it was to to remember before; the after-before-then that made his stomach roll.

It was hard to keep steady when Meis looked at him with both eyes like that, not just because he knew, he understood, he might’ve been able to read Gueira better than he could himself, but because Gueira knew well enough that Meis would never see him the way he had before. He didn’t mean that figuratively. He knew Meis could barely see out of one eye thanks to him. And he knew Meis knew about that guilt, inside and out.

“I don’t mind it. I never regretted it,” he said, quiet, almost solemn and secretive.

Gueira never knew what to say to that.

This time, when his hand burst aflame, Meis just smiled as sparks danced along. He picked a few up in his own hand as they twirled around his face and his hair and his fingers, and then stoked that fire between them further. They’d always been like this, a give and take, an upping of stakes, trying to go faster, do better, burn brighter.

Before either of them could say or do anything, there was the roar of an engine in the distance, startling them both enough for Gueira to go entirely up in flames for a half-second, one or two of the bags of popcorn beside them puffing up and basically exploding on the spot, trail mix burning to a crisp along with them.

Meis laughed a rare laugh as the noise grew louder, flames bright as a beacon whizzing vaguely in their direction.

“Well, here comes Boss…and we’re out of snacks,” Gueira groaned. “Guess we can head in soon.”

Meis snorted. “Yeah, let’s call it quits.”

They both stretched, and when Meis unfolded up onto his feet, he scooped up and shrugged on Gueira’s abandoned jacket along the way. Gueira followed.

Neither of them said anything; both of their flames cooling and fading enough to swirl around their ankles as they trailed behind and fizzled out.


End file.
